Saturday, 28 June 2008

Dainik Bhaskar has launched its Hindi financial daily, Business Bhaskar, in Bhopal on June 27. Business Bhaskar’s Bhopal edition will have an initial print run of more than 20,000 copies. The pink broadsheet has 12 pages and is an all colour product priced at Rs 1.50.The newspaper was unveiled by Venugopal Dhoot, Chairman and MD, Videocon at a ceremony on June 27.Yatish Rajawat, Editor, Business Bhaskar, said, “Due to the rapid economic growth in Tier II towns in India, there is an increased need for a Hindi financial daily in these cities. Business Bhaskar will address this need and will cover news relevant to entrepreneurs as well as working professionals.”He added, “the launch was preceded by a survey in Bhopal, This helped us to further understand the needs and the gaps in the market with respect to business and financial information helping us develop a product ‘by the people and defined by their needs.” (Source: www.exchange4media.com)

Thursday, 26 June 2008

Actually the following story was carried by The Hindu on May 08, 2008. I thought of reproducing it today after I received a mail (forwarded from several senders earlier) from a well-meaning colleague. It spoke of a free gift of laptops to those who would forward the mail to eight persons. I responded to the forward as follows:

" I am little intrigued by your mail today about free laptops to those who circulate the mail to eight persons. This reminded me of the chain post cards (Saibaba/ Santoshi Mata). Only fortunately, today there was no threat about heavy loss/damage/death in the family if the mail is not circulated.Jokes apart, is there anyone who actually received the laptops? Or at least any one who confirmed from the company if there is any such scheme?I clicked to download attachment and as anticipated it had a virus. I have quickly deleted the mail."

I request all of you to read the following and take appropriate action if you receive the chain mails as above.

Happy birthday spam, but no returns please

There is no sign of abatement as Net baddies use sophisticated ‘botnets’

— Photo: Bijoy Ghosh Cracked: Spammers have succeeded in cracking CAPTCHA that was designed to keep automated spam out.

Not all anniversaries are the occasion for celebration: One birthday in particular, has been attracting hostile notice on the Web. “You are 30 years old, and while most of us hope that you get a heart attack and die before you are 31, chances are you will outlive us all,” was one savage comment at the Australian portal, IT Wire. Another went: “Happy 30th birthday — but hopefully, no unhappy returns of the day!”

It is 30 years since the first ‘spam’ message — unsolicited e-mail — was sent over the Internet.

The precursor

On May 3, 1978, Gary Thuerka, salesperson for the Digital Equipment Corporation, sent a mail to 393 users of what was then Arpanet, the precursor to Internet, inviting them to a demonstration of DEC’s latest computer “Digital will be giving a product presentation of the newest members of the decsystem-20 family….we invite you to come see the 2020 and hear about the decsystem-20 family at the two product presentations we will be giving in California this month…”Arpnet’s military administrator sent a strongly worded message to all the addressees of the original mail: “…this was a flagrant violation of the use of arpanet as the network is to be used for official U.S. Government business only.

Appropriate action is being taken to preclude its occurrence again… Major Raymond Czahor”

Unstoppable

And that was that. For a decade after Internet as we know it today, was born, junk mail was unknown. Today, spam seems unstoppable: While leading Net security providers like Symantec, TrendMicro or McAfee, as well as all the main e-mail providers, try and filter out as much spam, as they can recognize, it is still an uphill task:100 billion spasm are sent off everyday.

Last week, Web security services provider, MessageLabs, released its Intelligence Report for 2008, where it finds that spammers increasingly use sophisticated new tools like botnets — robot programmes that aim to ‘capture’ your PC.

Bots lurk in the background of the captured computer, without destroying files or disrupting the computer’s operation. You may be ignorant of the ‘dirty work’ afoot, and might only notice slightly sluggish performance of your PC.

New technique

The report says a new spamming technique is being currently used to get past Yahoo Mail’s servers. It has already reached Indian users of Yahoo mail: Kiran Thakur, former head of Pune University’s Journalism Department, has forwarded to The Hindu, a mail he received last week, purportedly from Yahoo ‘Customer Care,’ which asks the email account holders to provide confidential details.

It is clearly not from Yahoo. Dr Thakur has a yahoo.com email ID; so he seems to have been a victim of the attack on Yahoo mail’s U.S.-based services. It is not known to have hit users of yahoo.co.in mail services.

The semi-annual Symantec Internet Threat Security Report, just released, says, there has been an increasing use of Gmail, Yahoo! and Hotmail, and other webmail services by spammers.

They have even succeeded in cracking CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) the technique used by web e-mail services to prevent wholesale automated account signups by spammers.

Typically, CAPTCHA requires humans to decipher a string of letters that are distorted to prevent automated reading.

Backscatter

According to ‘The Spam Report,’ Another spam technique is Backscatter: “The sender simply places the target recipient in the ‘from:’ header, and then a random email address in the ‘to:’ header, so the spam fails to reach its target and bounces straight back to the sender.

Wednesday, 25 June 2008

Maharashtra government is contemplating to set up a state Press Council. Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh made this announcement in Mumbai June 23.This is his way to try to stop attacks on journalists in Maharashtra. Although he did not outline details of his plan, but obviously there will be a code of conduct for the media. How the media and media persons respond to evolution of such a code remains to be seen.The Chief Minister was addressing the first meeting of a committee set up to examine ways and means of stopping attacks on mediapersons. He said .that the government appointed committee would soon suggest measures to prevent attacks on mediapersons and their offices.In the past fortnight, the Mumbai media's vulnerability to attacks from different quarters became a matter of serous concern. There have been attacks on the homes of senior journalist, Lokasatta editor Kumar Ketkar in Mumbai, and the offices of the Shiv Sena party organ, Saamna, in Pune.Deshmukh said that while the government was committed to the freedom of the media in the state, the media professionals should not misuse this liberty.Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil suggested that if media professionals apprehended any controversy to erupt from their writings, they should alert the police who will take preventive measures to ward off attacks.(Source: IANS and local media)

HYDERABAD, June 25): The row between the Madiga Reservation Porata Samiti (MRPS) and a Telugu daily Andhra Jyothi

The arrest of the journalists was based on a complaint lodged by MRPS leader Manda Krishna Madiga. He had alleged that the action of Andhra Jyothi staffers in beating up an effigy, symbolising him, with footwear attracted the provisions of the Act. This alleged incident took place near Jubilee Hills check-post during a rally taken out by the newspaper employees in protest against the attack on their office by MRPS activists on May 26.The MRPS activists allegedly raided the daily’s office, protesting against a report describing some unnamed leaders belonging to the backward classes as ‘saleable commodities.’Tuesday’s high drama unfolded in the afternoon, when police summoned two reporters of the daily to the Jubilee Hills station and announced their arrest. The newspaper staff rushed there and objected to the manner in which the arrests were carried out. The police then took the arrested reporters to the daily’s office in Jubilee Hills, where arguments continued for well over two hours over the propriety of the arrests. took a dramatic turn on Tuesday, when police arrested the newspaper Editor K. Srinivas and two reporters under the provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.Police maintained that they got legal opinion, which said there was a prima facie case against the three journalists.The staff and journalists who rushed to the newspaper office mobbed the police team and raised slogans condemning the arrests. After several rounds of protests, police took away the arrested journalists to the Jubilee Hills police station.

About Me

I worked as a professional journalist for over three decades. I began as a sub-editor with Pune’s daily Sakaal (1969-70) and worked with United News of India (1971-87), The Indian Post (1987-90) and The Observer of Business and Politics (1991-2000). I shifted to academics in 2001 as Professor and Head, Department of Communication and Journalism (DoCJ), University of Pune. My doctoral thesis and later UGC-funded study was on web editions of Indian Newspapers. After retirement in 2007, I was at the Mudra Institute of Communications Research, Ahmedabad, for a year. Here we studied viewers of Aastha channel’s live telecast of Swami Ramdev Baba, Use of Internet for Loksabha elections, and features of mobile handsets. I have been associated also with University of Mumbai, University of Calcutta, North Maharashtra University, and Indira Gandhi National Open University. I became Adjunct Faculty and Research Co-coordinator at FLAME School of Communication, Pune, in December 2009. I am an adjunct faculty also at DoCJ, University of Mumbai. Here I am Principal Investigator of UGC-funded Major Research Project on Language of English Newspapers of India.